Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of internal audit chiefs surveyed by business consultancy Ernst & Young said they don't regard data privacy and IT fraud as the most important issues.

Corporate breaches and data-privacy regulation were ranked sixth in the top 10 concerns by internal audit executives, and ninth by CIOs.

Erol Mustafa, head of IT internal audit services at Ernst & Young, said senior executives must recognise the importance of data privacy and should address it as part of their overall risk-management and compliance strategy.

Other top concerns for chief information officers over the next 12 months are major business programmes, business continuity and disaster recovery.

Separate research from VeriSign found that, despite the economic downturn, IT security spending may not suffer.

Just 17 percent of security professionals surveyed said they expect cuts to IT security spending in the next 12 months.

Mike Davies, director of identification and authentication services at VeriSign, said security and trust need to be top of the agenda for online businesses if they want to maintain the boom in online transactions.

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